ICARUS ONLINE UK: WHO WE ARE AND WHAT WE DO

We are a non profit organisation founded by two veterans, myself, Simon Maryan and David Bellamy. We are operated by veterans, meaning that we understand what's happening with serving personnel, veterans and emergency services and . Now as a team of qualified therapists in various fields we offer a non-prescriptive solution where people who come to us for help are actively involved in deciding what is right for them, with our guidance.

We provide immediate and ongoing mental health care to military, veterans and emergency services in the UK and we do this by taking advantage of a video call system called Zoom, which means we can provide immediate care through instant interventions in the event of a mental health crisis.

As a not for profit and working virtually predominantly, we do provide in person treatment where possible, we set up to avoid having any premises that we have to pay for so that we do not waste valuable funds on rent etc. I am delighted to say that Scottish Fire and Rescue Service have agreed to partner with us and allow us free access to all Fire Stations in Scotland. This obviously helps us immensely, not only in giving us nationwide reach here, but also in fulfilling our ethos and promise of not having premises of our own.

We are fortunate to have the support and backing of some very senior peple who understand and appreciate the need for our services.

These generous people are Lord Dannatt, General Peter Currie, General Andrew Graham, chairman of Combat Stress, General Sir John McColl, chariman of COBSEO and Colonel David Richmond, chairman of the Contact Group set up by Prince Harry, they too are in agreement that the military charities sector needs shaking up, tightening up and reforming which is now beginning to happen.

My friend, colleague and co-founder, David Bellamy, is an extraordinary man with one hell of a life behind him. He was in the British Army and served in Dhofar in the 70’s during the Secret War. He has worked as a commercial diver, worked for Lloyds of London and was instrumental in setting up their first Kidnap and ransom insurance package. David, like myself was trained by Stephen Brooks, the founder of British Hypnosis Research and Training Institute and is the worlds best teacher of Ericksonian Hypnosis and Psychotherapy.

We are called ICARUS, which stands for Immediate Care, Assessment and Rehabilitaion for Uniformed Services, which means we cover all branches of the military and emergency services because there are many veterans working in the civilian uniformed services that deal with horrendous situations on a regular basis and also may well need our help.

We wanted to be a not for profit because there are already 350 plus military charities in a system that is unregulated, poorly structured at present, and with no standards required to be fulfilled and is in desperate need of an overhaul. This is by no means meant to undermine the extraordinary and excellent work being done by so many in this sector, purely that it can be tightened up and improved so that people do not fall through the net, are not turned away or dropped because they are unable to commit to systems that are far too rigid for people with mental illness. And yes this does happen because these are precisely the people I have been treating for over ten years now.

Access to our services is open to anyone. In principle, no one will be refused. There will be no discrimination on grounds of length of service, reason for discharge, medical condition or disability, age, physical disability, gender, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy or maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, political or other opinion. This is a free service open to all service personnel as set out in our constitution.

The phone number is 0800 689 0864

We also have a website that lists all our therapists, each with a personal bio explaining what they do and how they work. All our therapists will be associates, they will be vetted and cleared by us to ensure that they have the appropriate insurance etc for the therapies they provide.

If you are interested in helping us with sponsorship, donations or have any suggestions about people, organisations to speak to then please get in touch by email donations@icarusonline.net

Our target this year is to raise £100,000 to help us provide the best possible care to the military, veterans and emergency services because not only do they deserve it, they need it and it‘s unnacceptable for these people who risk their lives to wait as long as they currently have to to access treatment.

You can find us on Intagram, Twitter and Facebook as icarusonlineuk and our website is www.icarusonline.net